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1938 Opel Admiral Cabriolet


Plastheniker

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Between WWI and WWII the Adam Opel AG (owned by GM since 1929) was Germany's largest car manufacturer. After WWII Opel remained no. 2 behind Volkswagen until the seventies and enjoyed a reputation of supplying modern and reliable cars at moderate prices. The decline of Opel came when GM imposed a drastic policy of cutbacks which resulted in a general quality disaster from which Opel sales never recovered despite later quality improvements. While VW, Mercedes, Audi and BMW flourished Opel existed at the verge of bankruptcy for years, only kept alive by the German government. Recently Peugeot bought Opel's remains.

 

Between the wars Opel's biggest cars belonged to the lower upper class. In 1938 Opel entered the lower luxury class introducing the 3.5 litre Admiral. The Admiral was offered at the same price that Mercedes demanded for a 2.3 litre car. The beginning of WWII stopped production after less than 7000 finished Admirals.

 

ICM's kit (currently reboxed by RoG) shows bright light and deep shadows.

Fit and parts quality are excellent , the kit is well-detailed and with some extra work the finished model looks great.

On the other hand one has to cope with several issues:

  • The fit of the closed soft top is disastrous and took me more than one day to make the top fit snugly

  • The multi-piece body consists of 8 parts, IMO rather anachronistic

  • Panel lines are too shallow and must be rescribed (neurasthenics should refrain)

  • The kit dashboard is rather simple without usable dial decals

  • My decal sheet looked good but most decals fell apart when becoming wet

  • Chroming is partially very poor or even missing, so praise Mr. Molotow!

 

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Admiral008250-vi.jpg
Admiral009250-vi.jpg

 

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Thanks for the response!

 

On 8/29/2020 at 3:27 PM, Classicgas said:

Beautiful.  Have this one myself.  What were the fit problems on the roof and what did you do? 

There were conspicuous gaps between soft top and the top and the rear of the side windows, the windshield frame and the rear body. The remedy was cautious bending, adding styrene strips, putty and a ot lof sanding ...

 

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Thanks for the recent replies!

 

11 hours ago, Dann Tier said:

Beautiful!!!!...its been so long since i've seen your work...whatcha working on next?

Dann,

Though actually a (mostly scratch) builder of German and American vintage trucks for almost 15 years I switch to car modeling now and then in order to avoid a one track mind.

 

For the current 12 months I have three aged 1930s kits on my to-do-list that I have never seen finished convincingly:

  • Cadillac V16 Fleetwood (Italeri)

  • Chrysler Imperial Phaeton (Italeri)

  • Delahaye 135 (Heller)

Of course I will show them here.

 

 

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